Chapter 4

Nope, still wasting away here…

Dargan’s POV

I was left alone for some time after that. This time I managed to keep time by the meals that came and went into the cell. Which seriously should have been my first clue that something was amiss.

Never trust anyone who’s trying to feed you…

Everything else remained the same. Until one day when the cell door opened and the man from earlier entered. The dead girl’s father. He looked pretty much the same, but for some reason, he didn’t have a rank anymore. Oh, he was definitely still a very powerful wolf, but now he didn’t hold a position within the pack now…

Wondered what happened there?

Not that I asked. Hell, I didn’t say anything despite him looking at me expectantly. As if waiting for me to say something. Again, I didn’t. Mostly because whatever insanity had overtaken me the other day had left and I was back to being somewhat normal. The other reason was simple: I learned from a young age that if you kept quiet, you would hear a lot…

“I want the truth,” he finally cracked, taking a step towards me, and didn’t stop until we were only separated by a few short feet.

“Don’t we all?” I mocked, knowing that since it was the alpha’s son who killed her, there was no chance in hell he was going to be held accountable.

I was there…

The perfect scapegoat!

Well, almost perfect…

You see, all I had to do was to claim my innocence once. Then the alpha was obligated to investigate – yes, we were animals, not savages! We do have a legal system primed with lawyers and everything. We just also have a death penalty and an easy way around the legal system:

Kill on sight!

Since the alpha had been too stupid to do so – or just too arrogant – we were here now. But I had a theory about that too. You see---

The son came home to his father and told him his little lie. Unfortunately, scent doesn’t lie and the alpha probably quickly figured out what really had happened. Had the girl been someone insignificant, he would simply have dropped the matter. Delayed the rescue party somehow and then I would have gotten away, with just another murder to my name.

But he killed a ranked wolf’s daughter…

Which was why I’d been apprehended and locked up here. And then tortured, with a spiked silver gag in my mouth to ensure that I couldn’t speak. When the alpha had hoped I was broken and just wanted to die, he brought his friend down here for “closure”.

Neat trick!

Hell, I’d seen it done a million times before when ranked wolves needed a scapegoat. Who better to put the blame on than a nobody rogue? Lucky for me, I’d managed to still claim innocence. Unlucky for me, having this idiot in front of me now, only meant one thing:

Nobody was doing shit with my case…

In other words, I was now left here to rot until the day I died.

Lucky me…

“I want to know what happened to my daughter!” he growled--- but it broke off as if remembering her snatched the strength from his voice.

“Please…”

It was the “please” that got to me…

I’d begged “please” so many times after I left my father’s pack. Only to be ignored over and over again. And I hated that feeling. The helplessness and fear. Feeling control over your own life – your own body! – just slip away.

And being powerless to stop it…

I groaned out loud and pushed to my feet, so I at least could meet him face to face.

Why was I such a freaking softy?

“I was letting my wolf out, not far from your territory when I heard someone screaming for help,” I told him the very short version of events. “I went to investigate---”

I paused, wondering how to tell a man I watched his daughter – someone he obviously loved with every cell in his body – being raped and murdered right in front of me. And I was just a fraction of a second too late to save her…

Well, this was either going to hurt me---

Or him!

“You sure you want to hear the rest?” I asked, just because I wanted to spare myself the pain of having my teeth knocked out – again!

“Tell me!” he gritted between clenched teeth.

Here goes nothing then…

“He was trying to rape her,” I said, keeping my voice neutral in an attempt not to piss him off anymore – or at least so he wouldn’t take his anger out on me. “She put up one hell of a fight, I’ll give her that. Perhaps too good of a fight,” I continued and to my surprise, a smile actually crept across his lips. So, he’d been the one to teach her? I was impressed. Even for someone so young, she’d put up one hell of a fight, if the kid’s state was anything to go by…

“Before I could reach them, he had his claws out and slashed her throat,” I told him, watching as his fingers clenched into fists. “I pulled him off, but the wound was too deep. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

His hands shook by his side and the anger rolled off him in thick waves. He was trying to remain calm – and objective. Trying to handle this as if it was any other case, he had to work on. And if I was being honest, he was doing good.

Not that I ever wanted to be in his shoes, but…

“But you---” he growled low, finally looking back up at me. “You had her blood on your hands?”

“Yes,” I confessed since I had nothing to hide. “I tried to stop the bleeding.”

His entire body was shaking, and judging by the wetness in his eyes I was guessing that anger wasn’t the only emotion making him misty-eyed. I could tell that he loved her a lot. And that had my freaking softy of a damned wolf whining and before I knew it, I was looking for ways to perhaps say something that could---

I don’t know…

Make it better?

There was no way that anyone would ever get past the pain of losing a child so why I even bothered trying was beyond me at this point. Hell, perhaps some of that insanity came back, but before I knew it, I asked:

“Was it just the two of you?”

The answer to the question was obvious, but I didn’t know what else to say right then. I tried not to sound too rough, despite my condition. And my cynical side was berating me for being a complete idiot. Instead of answering his stupid questions and consoling him, I should ask for something decent to eat and drink…

Well…

Fuck me for being the fool once again…

“Yes,” he answered after a short pause. Despite his anger and grief, there was actually a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.

He really loved her…

Yet, I wonder for how long he would feel that way for her. If she was still alive, how long before that devotion and love turned to spite and hate? What would she do, to lose her father’s love? I thought my father loved me too, but he threatened me the second I sidestepped. And my mother chose her pride over me just as easily as he’d turned on me.

They betrayed me…

That girl in the woods would never feel that. What it felt like when the people you think are there to protect you, turn on you. So perhaps, in a way, it was good that she’d died.

At least she wouldn’t have to experience that…

“Her last thoughts were of you,” I told him, and he looked stunned by that revelation. “I told her to think about something that made her happy. Someone she loved.”

“Y-you---,” he asked, sounding surprised. “You stayed with her?”

Wasn’t that sort of obvious in my previous statement?

“Yes,” I replied instead, thinking I liked to keep my teeth today…

“Th-thank you,” he mumbled, his eyes suddenly looking everywhere but me.

I frowned.

Did he seriously just thank me?!

“Don’t thank me,” I scoffed, rattling my chains. “I’ve lived long enough to regret it.”

I probably shouldn’t have said that and I was more or less expecting a punch to the gut or something! But he just shrugged, before taking a second glance at me, as if really seeing me for the first time.

“What’s your name?” he asked--- and instantly ice formed in my stomach. The second he knew my name, I was being dragged out of there and killed in a dark alley somewhere. No matter how far away I ran, no werewolf would ever forget the boy who killed his own father…

For a split second I pondered lying, but--- then again, I was dead either way…

“Dargan,” I replied, watching his expression. “Dargan Hellson.”

And there it was!

He recognized the name. His eyes widened and he was looking at me in a whole new light.

“You’re---” he gasped, suddenly taking a step back. As if he might be in danger just being near me! “You’re that kid that murdered his own father!”

Well, it didn’t matter how many times I said it, nobody was ever going to believe me. But then again, saying it one more time wouldn’t hurt…

“Sure,” I scoffed and rolled my eyes at him, laughing as I watched his features transform from grief to fear. “Because a 14-year-old could easily overpower and kill an alpha? What’s next? Unicorns are real? Do pigs fly too?”

I grinned as if it was just all one big fat joke. But what else was I supposed to do? Back at my own trial, I couldn’t ask for an alpha command to be put on my mother. She was the Luna and the highest-ranking wolf in our pack.

Her word was law!

And I was just an angry kid…

The man just stood there, stunned for a long moment, before finally speaking again.

“You’re insane,” he accused, and--- well, he might not be totally off…

“Why?” I asked, smirking and perhaps looking a bit mad for the moment. “I think it’s funny how facts work. Don’t you? Because let’s be honest! You wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t off about that kid’s story. And you wouldn’t be here asking me about the truth if you think I would lie.”

I took a step forward and leaned towards him as far as the chains would let me.

“So why would I lie about that?”

He held my gaze for a long second before he spun around and left, leaving me alone in the cell once again. And I more or less expected that to be the end of it. That these four walls would be my companions for the rest of my life.

But I was wrong…

That was only when all hell broke loose…